(no subject)
I don’t eat much anymore. I don’t sleep much anymore.
All I do is work, worry, and ponder.
The past four weeks have been the longest, saddest, and most contemplative of my life.
I can’t say it is all brought on by my cousin’s death. Obviously that was what catapulted the rest, but grandad’s possible deportation, and bashing, and the way he has been treated; my grandmothers pain and anguish, the way my extensive and immediate family has changed forever, it plays on my mind.
Work at the moment = stress. Which I actually love, because it takes my mind off of everything else. I can’t handle talking about Stephen. I can’t contemplate why he did it anymore. Or how he felt about us. I can’t keep contemplating this, because that causes me to contemplate other things, horrible things:
*He never liked me. My only memories of Stephen are of him as a teenager and then adult, making condescending comments about me being a whinging/needy/spoilt brat, and of me resenting him for that. I haven’t told anyone this, because it is natural to immediately feel guilty when someone dies and your only memories of them are negative. But it’s true. Stephen didn’t like me. He didn’t know me, but that doesn’t mean he couldn’t judge me. I don’t know why he felt that way, I assume it’s because he might have felt I had everything he didn’t, or that he really did just think I was a whinging/needy/spoilt brat… or maybe he was just a teenager.
But this haunts me now. Because I’m conflicted. I’m mourning for someone I didn’t know, who didn’t know me… yet we both knew we wouldn’t like one another if we had taken the time...
And I am mourning. I’ve never felt so helpless and sad and horrified and empty. Never. But maybe I’m mourning for Grace and Terry, who I do love with all of my heart, who I respect and adore. Maybe I’m mourning for my parents who were the equivalent for Stephen that Traven and me are for Bowen: Bowen and Stephen were the first grandchild… the first nephew… the closest we had to our own children.
Maybe I’m mourning because family are my form of religion, and to lose one, even the one I knew the least, is crushing to my faith.
*I can’t get out of my head what Stephens last moments might have been like. Did he change his mind in his last moments and decide he wanted to live? Did he change his mind just that second too late, when he couldn’t change his decision, and he had to die knowing it was all in vain. Knowing he had made the wrong choice?
*The feeling I had when I walked into the service, and saw Grace being comforted by my mother. The feeling I had when I walked between the pews to approach them and at the last moment, saw the open coffin, seeing the top of Stephen’s cap and knowing he was visible, vulnerable.
Knowing he was cold. It was too much.
*My grandmother burying her head into my brothers chest as the hearse left the service while she wailed “no, no no no no no no…” while she shook her head.
*Terri-Ann. How alone she feels despite never having a solid relationship with her brother. How, on the day of his funeral, when I made a joke about her borrowing Traven whenever she wanted, she just said “I just want my own brother back…”. And later, as she slept on the bus with her head in my lap, she looked so much like a little girl, peaceful and innocent and unaffected.
*I will never get the image of my aunty kneeling at Stephen’s grave site, out of my mind. Slowly and meticulously she placed dirt on his coffin. Just the ritual of it, the pain in how slowly she did it, almost savouring it, because it was all she had left of him physically, the dirt she was placing on his grave.
*My seven year old nephew, throwing up in Grandma’s bathroom, two days after we found out Stephen was gone. How he must have felt… being woken up at 9pm two nights before, and in that time:
sitting in the back of a car 5 hours a day while we drove to and from Marysville/Coldstream/Preston, only to arrive at our destination and watch the people he’s known all his life cry, wail, sit silently, and hold on to him like he was the only person in the world.
I doubt very much him throwing up all over Grandma’s bathroom rug was just car-sickness.
*How selfish I feel getting on with my own life now, throwing myself into work and comedy to the point where I work from 8am-11pm every day and ignore my friends… and my family… who need me most. How selfish I feel that I’ve done exactly what the ‘bereavement advice’ the doctor gave me said, which indicated me staying away from my aunty and uncle… even though I swore to myself I wouldn’t.
“People will tend to avoid you for a while after the funeral while they get back to their own routines. You will feel lonely and isolated in this time, but those around you have nothing to say…”
I will never forgive myself for this.
I have lost weight. My hip bones are visible.
There are bags under my eyes that I didn’t think I’d see until old age.
My emotions are so tempermental I just feel empty all the time.
I don’t know my family anymore… because I don’t talk, I come home, I work, I go to bed.
I don’t want to get over this, which frightens me the most. I don’t want to wash the dishes at work… which I normally find calming.
I don’t want to feel ok again. I don’t want that occasional feeling of security, happiness and contentment to hit me.
Because when I feel like that, I know I’m moving on, and if I’m moving on, I’m forgetting.
And I can never forget.
All I do is work, worry, and ponder.
The past four weeks have been the longest, saddest, and most contemplative of my life.
I can’t say it is all brought on by my cousin’s death. Obviously that was what catapulted the rest, but grandad’s possible deportation, and bashing, and the way he has been treated; my grandmothers pain and anguish, the way my extensive and immediate family has changed forever, it plays on my mind.
Work at the moment = stress. Which I actually love, because it takes my mind off of everything else. I can’t handle talking about Stephen. I can’t contemplate why he did it anymore. Or how he felt about us. I can’t keep contemplating this, because that causes me to contemplate other things, horrible things:
*He never liked me. My only memories of Stephen are of him as a teenager and then adult, making condescending comments about me being a whinging/needy/spoilt brat, and of me resenting him for that. I haven’t told anyone this, because it is natural to immediately feel guilty when someone dies and your only memories of them are negative. But it’s true. Stephen didn’t like me. He didn’t know me, but that doesn’t mean he couldn’t judge me. I don’t know why he felt that way, I assume it’s because he might have felt I had everything he didn’t, or that he really did just think I was a whinging/needy/spoilt brat… or maybe he was just a teenager.
But this haunts me now. Because I’m conflicted. I’m mourning for someone I didn’t know, who didn’t know me… yet we both knew we wouldn’t like one another if we had taken the time...
And I am mourning. I’ve never felt so helpless and sad and horrified and empty. Never. But maybe I’m mourning for Grace and Terry, who I do love with all of my heart, who I respect and adore. Maybe I’m mourning for my parents who were the equivalent for Stephen that Traven and me are for Bowen: Bowen and Stephen were the first grandchild… the first nephew… the closest we had to our own children.
Maybe I’m mourning because family are my form of religion, and to lose one, even the one I knew the least, is crushing to my faith.
*I can’t get out of my head what Stephens last moments might have been like. Did he change his mind in his last moments and decide he wanted to live? Did he change his mind just that second too late, when he couldn’t change his decision, and he had to die knowing it was all in vain. Knowing he had made the wrong choice?
*The feeling I had when I walked into the service, and saw Grace being comforted by my mother. The feeling I had when I walked between the pews to approach them and at the last moment, saw the open coffin, seeing the top of Stephen’s cap and knowing he was visible, vulnerable.
Knowing he was cold. It was too much.
*My grandmother burying her head into my brothers chest as the hearse left the service while she wailed “no, no no no no no no…” while she shook her head.
*Terri-Ann. How alone she feels despite never having a solid relationship with her brother. How, on the day of his funeral, when I made a joke about her borrowing Traven whenever she wanted, she just said “I just want my own brother back…”. And later, as she slept on the bus with her head in my lap, she looked so much like a little girl, peaceful and innocent and unaffected.
*I will never get the image of my aunty kneeling at Stephen’s grave site, out of my mind. Slowly and meticulously she placed dirt on his coffin. Just the ritual of it, the pain in how slowly she did it, almost savouring it, because it was all she had left of him physically, the dirt she was placing on his grave.
*My seven year old nephew, throwing up in Grandma’s bathroom, two days after we found out Stephen was gone. How he must have felt… being woken up at 9pm two nights before, and in that time:
sitting in the back of a car 5 hours a day while we drove to and from Marysville/Coldstream/Preston, only to arrive at our destination and watch the people he’s known all his life cry, wail, sit silently, and hold on to him like he was the only person in the world.
I doubt very much him throwing up all over Grandma’s bathroom rug was just car-sickness.
*How selfish I feel getting on with my own life now, throwing myself into work and comedy to the point where I work from 8am-11pm every day and ignore my friends… and my family… who need me most. How selfish I feel that I’ve done exactly what the ‘bereavement advice’ the doctor gave me said, which indicated me staying away from my aunty and uncle… even though I swore to myself I wouldn’t.
“People will tend to avoid you for a while after the funeral while they get back to their own routines. You will feel lonely and isolated in this time, but those around you have nothing to say…”
I will never forgive myself for this.
I have lost weight. My hip bones are visible.
There are bags under my eyes that I didn’t think I’d see until old age.
My emotions are so tempermental I just feel empty all the time.
I don’t know my family anymore… because I don’t talk, I come home, I work, I go to bed.
I don’t want to get over this, which frightens me the most. I don’t want to wash the dishes at work… which I normally find calming.
I don’t want to feel ok again. I don’t want that occasional feeling of security, happiness and contentment to hit me.
Because when I feel like that, I know I’m moving on, and if I’m moving on, I’m forgetting.
And I can never forget.